Cranbury’s Township Committee will hold a public hearing in December for an ordinance that would codify the creation of the Cranbury Station Hamlet Historic District.
If approved, the ordinance would also codify modifications made to the boundaries of the existing Cranbury Village Historic District. The public hearing takes place at a Township Committee meeting on Dec. 13.
The Cranbury Station Hamlet Historic District will consist of four homes on the west side of Halsey Reed Road and south of the joined connection with Station Road. They are 96 and 96A Halsey Reed Road, 92 Halsey Reed Road, 90 Halsey Reed Road and 88 Halsey Reed Road.
The homes date to the mid-19th century and they abut the Camden and Amboy railroad track.
Cranbury Station hamlet still contains the former railroad station house which was on the Camden and Amboy branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
The hamlet is an unincorporated community of Cranbury Township that borders Monroe Township and contains Halsey Reed Road. The railroad established a station in Cranbury at this location in the 1830s and took passengers from New York and Philadelphia. By 1880, a hamlet had grown up around Cranbury Station.
Cranbury Station residents had been seeking to preserve the area as an historic district for years.
Back in July, the Cranbury Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) recommended to the Planning Board that the Cranbury Station hamlet be designated as a historic district and went on to forward their recommendations for adoption to the Township Committee. A list of properties was recommended for inclusion in the Cranbury Station Historic District, according to amendment and ordinance documents.
A list of properties would also be recommended for the existing Village Historic District. The HPC assessed certain properties in the existing Village Historic District buffer and Historic District. The modifications recommended include properties where a portion of the lot is in the Historic District and the rest of the property is outside of the historic buffer.
Properties include 1 Prospect Street, 5 Prospect Street, 23 N. Main St., 12A, B and C Station Road, Brainerd Lake, and 22 Station Road.
There are portions recommended to be removed, which are a portion of 38A Maplewood Avenue (a driveway to Village Park) and a portion of 24 Wynnewood Drive (section of Cranbury Brook Preserve.)
The Planning Board will be conducting a consistency review of the ordinance at it body’s Dec. 2 meeting, prior to the public hearing on Dec. 13.